Monday, 29 April 2013

The Gift portal has an intuitive design and very user friendly layout. You can sign up for the service with your basic information like name and email or instead use your Facebook login. Once on the main page you have the option of choosing between gifting a person, contributing to a gifting pool or redeeming a gift.

Social Media Buddies can Now Pool in to Gift With Each Other Instantly

So your friends birthday is up and its time to get him a gift: try BuddyGifting.com, a social gifting service from an Ahmedabad based startup. The service comes handy whether you are getting your friend a gift or pooling in with your other friends to get one.

To gift a person, you have to enter the receiver’s basic information like name, email and mobile number. An easier alternative is choosing you buddy directly from your Facebook friends list, provided you have logged into the service using your Facebook login. The next step is to choose the occasion for the gift and the date and time on which you want the receiver to be notified. Once this is done, you are taken to the store from which you can choose the gifts.

At this step you are given the option of inviting others from your Facebook id or through email in case you are going for group gifting. The others invited to the group gift are notified through email or their Facebook page.

The service can notify the receiver on a chosen date with up to 3 gift choices. The receiver can then redeem the gift from the choices given or swap the gift for anything else from the BuddyGifting store. They also have an option to get a prepaid Visa Gift card instead of the gifts offered. The value of the gift is the price of the highest valued item from the ones chosen .

The final step is to enter the amount you will chip in, in case of group gifting, along with the your personalized message for the receiver. The message are listed on the page when the receiver logs in to redeem his gift. The payment can then be made using CreditDebit Card, Cash Card, or Net Banking. Once this step is over you are done with the process of gifting.

If you are part of a group gift, you will get the link for the group gifting page from which you can keep track of the contributions and other details of the gift.

The service has tied up with leading retailers like Flipkart, Lifestyle, Hidesign Shoppers Stop etc for the gift store. The portal also has an option for you to shop from the gift store for yourself.

The company plans to target people between the age group of 18 – 40, who are confused about what gifts to pick up and end up picking a bad gift and the receiver ends up a lot of unwanted gifts.

Using this service you can notify the gift receiver in India instantly or on a chosen date from anywhere in the world. The service also allows the gift receivers to change the gift or get a prepaid visa gift card thereby increasing the productive utilization of gifts.

We had recently covered a service from Facebook through which you can gift your family or friends living in the U.S.

Some of the other startups that are in the gifting space in India are Giveter, which provides you with gifting recommendation for relevant gifts based on recipient’s age and Badhai.in, another social/group gifting service.